7th Vatavaran Film Festival from todayStaff Reporter GUWAHATI, Sept 6 - CMS Vatavaran is organising the 7th edition of the internationally acclaimed CMS Vatavaran Environment and Wildlife International Film Festival and Forum in Guwahati from tomorrow.The festival, titled Brahmaputra River International Festival, will revolve around the theme 'Water For Life', and is dedicated to all rivers.

The five-day festival will showcase the best of green films in addition to a host of activities including a green filmmaking and editing workshop, media roundtable, cleaning drive, walk with river, competitions like slogan writing, photography, poster-making, calligram, word cloud, sketching and painting, music and dance.

The festival will be held across 9 venues, with the inaugural ceremony scheduled at Rabindra Bhawan, to be followed by the inaugural film My Disappearing Land by a nominated filmmaker Usha Dewani. The duration of the film is 11 minutes. The film is about how the river Brahmaputra has eaten up more than half of Asia's riverine island Majuli over a period of 60 years. With land disappearing, there is a progressive loss of the traditional means of livelihood of its people, leading to their displacement.

A package of Assamese film screenings will be organised during the festival at Rabindra Bhawan. The programmes will spread over Bharalu riverbank, Deepor Beel, State Art Gallery etc.

It needs to be mentioned that 30 award-winning and nominated films and 15 Assamese films on environment and wildlife will be screened across Rabindra Bhawan, Maria's Public School and Sudmersen Hall, Cotton College. A total of 45 films will be screened during the festival.

This environment and wildlife film festival and forum is aimed at enhancing understanding, appreciation and shift in attitudes towards the natural world and at increasing space for environmental issues in mass media and evolving a nationwide environment outreach framework.

The festival reaches out to people from all walks of life including filmmakers, civil society groups, government organisations, environmentalists, researchers, conservationists, policy makers, activists, public and private sector organisations and students of all ages and is recognised as a calendar event amongst filmmakers and in the environment, wildlife and conservation sectors. Till date 40 festivals have been organised in 30 cities of India. The travelling festivals are organised in state capitals and important towns and cities.